Ohio auditor questions lack of investigations after scandal

2017-06-18T19:32:56Z2017-06-18T19:34:24Z

By The Associated Press

(Source: WTOL)

(AP) -

Ohio's state auditor is questioning why some Columbus school administrators haven't been disciplined by the Ohio Department of Education five years after a newspaper investigation found that records had been altered to scrub millions of student absences.

The Columbus Dispatch reports (http://bit.ly/2th21f6 ) that Auditor Dave Yost says the education department has disciplined just 16 of 64 Columbus school administrators suspected of falsifying data. Yost says 35 still work for the district, some earning six-figure salaries, including two of the superintendent's top aides.

The Dispatch investigation found that records of 2.8 million absences were deleted over a 5 ½ year period.

A Columbus school district spokesman declined to comment about why employees implicated by Yost remain district leaders.

An education department spokeswoman says the agency can't disclose who is under investigation.